


Complications

by Bitterblue



Series: Experimental Theology [5]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Orphan Black AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 01:16:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1800100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitterblue/pseuds/Bitterblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Too soon to be back meant she might have a day or two before word of it reached the Magisterium and she could collect her thoughts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Complications

Delphine's rooms at the university were cold and dark, unaired and dusty. She scrambled to light a candle in the deepening afternoon sunlight, then lit the naphtha lamps and brazier as well.  _Of course it's untouched, this is too soon to be back_. She watched with some fascination as dust shifted in the air currents left by her movement, caught between the amber glow of the naphtha and the paler light from her window. Dust, and probably Dust as well. With the promised laboratory, perhaps she could learn to twist them apart into separate things, to seek one and not the other.

Too soon to be back meant she might have a day or two before word of it reached the Magisterium and she could collect her thoughts. When she left for England, she had been confident it would be months, perhaps years before she could even be sure the Professor  _had_  the object she was sent to fetch. Four days. Four days was not enough time to do anything at all. It hadn't been enough time to--

Laurent nipped at her calf, teeth pressing against her without closing. "You're still sulking about that girl." She rolled her eyes, huffing out an indignant noise. "We're home now. It's going to be fine."

Later, curled up in stale sheets, Delphine drifted to sleep with the alethiometer in her fist and dreamt of dark hair and darker eyes.

 

It was with some dismay that she greeted the knock at her door the next morning to find a tall, balding, familiar man smiling in an unpleasant, almost expectant way.

"Aldous?"

"So you  _have_  returned. There was word of it last night but we all thought it must be a mistake. Why are you here? You cannot possibly have completed--"

Behind her, Laurent growled faintly. She watched as Aldous's sleek marmoset daemon shifted uncomfortably at his feet and then clambered up to perch on his shoulder. "It is done. Must I come now, or can I make myself presentable?"

The halls of the convent attached to the university were severe grey stone that seemed to side with the chill of winter in a winning battle against the faint sunlight. They were familiar, though, and the warmth of that feeling was enough to push aside her old distaste for the buildings.  _Home_. She was home, now. She would give them the alethiometer. The laboratory would be state of the art, no expense spared. She could research in peace. She found herself smiling, then laughing, Laurent's tail wagging excitedly. The alethiometer rested heavy in her pocket.

Aldous kept an office at one end of one of the grander buildings; she had been there before and found it easily enough again. She knocked, and at a muffled  _Entrez_  pressed the door handle. The room looked the same as she remembered, lined in bookshelves heavy with their leather-bound burdens and small trinkets of a rich life. The small skeleton of a monkey she thought might be the same type as his daemon made her shudder briefly, catching her eye from its prominent place near a window. The window was partially open, the breeze gently rustling papers on the desk and negating the warmth of the sunlight spilling in through the glass.

To Delphine's surprise, there was a small, dark-haired woman standing by the window, her back to the door and Aldous's desk. Aldous himself looked faintly vexed, but he smiled like an oil slick as he caught Delphine's eye and then her hands in an overbearing welcome.

"Good, good, you're here. Good. Delphine," his voice was overly familiar, and he still held her hands. "I wanted you to meet someone. She is the reason for all of this fuss, and a very good scholar in her own right."

The woman seemed not to notice she was being introduced, still staring silently out the window. Her dress was severe and dark, the sort that had come into fashion with the nuns who worked outside of traditional convent roles, though she had no covering on her hair. Her hair itself was wild in comparison, a riot of dark curls and waves that brought drowning to mind. A noise of surprise rose in Delphine's throat, unbidden, as a dark bird shape landed on the window and then stepped delicately inside to grip the woman's wrist. The crow's eyes examined her briefly, and then the woman turned.

"Cosima?" Delphine blinked in confusion, pulling her hands free of Aldous and taking a step towards the woman who regarded her with raised eyebrows and an expression cooler than the wind sneaking beneath glass and wood.

"My name is Rachel Duncan. You have it?" Her voice was Cosima's, or what Cosima's voice might have been if it had been stripped of laughter, and so very much  _not_  Cosima's voice at all. The crow shifted and resettled himself on the woman's shoulder. Her daemon, clearly.

"Yes, I…" she reached into her pocket and proffered the stolen thing as if the touch of it, or Rachel, or both might burn her. "And my lab?"

"It will be done. You have surprised us with your expediency. You've done well, Miss Cormier. The Magisterium will not forget. I will not forget."

It was a dismissal, and she understood it, turning on her heels to go.

"There were no complications?" The voice stilled her at the door, her hand reaching for the handle and escape. Delphine licked her lip and pulled her face into what she thought was probably a smile.

"No. None."


End file.
